Solid state drives (SSDs) are being eyed as the future of enterprise data
storage for the improvements in speed, reliability and energy savings they
offer. SSDs for consumers are small devices very similar in size and shape to
the traditional hard drive used in computer systems.

The SSD in an enterprise environment often takes on a different form factor
though and the latest of these enterprise SSDs is from Texas Memory. Texas
Memory says that its RamSan-440 can sustain a record setting 600,000 IOPS (input/outputs
per second) and can be had with capacities of 256GB and 512GB.

The available storage
space is a record for RAM-based SSDs. EWeek reports that the RamSan-440
is also the first SSD to use NAND flash modules in a RAID configuration for
data backup. The SSD also uses proprietary technology from Texas Memory called
IO2 (Instant-On Input-Output) that improves availability by making
data requested from users or applications available instantly when the system
is on.

The RamSan-440 uses DDR2 RAM reports eWeek and can sustain 4Gbps
random read and write speed with a latency of under 15 ms. The device is in a
4U rack mount chassis and can be attached via SAN or directly attached via up
to eight 4Gbps Fibre Channel ports.

Data backup is accomplished using RAID protected flash memory modules.
Backup is done continuously to the internal flash modules with little impact on
system performance. Pricing information is unknown, but considering that a ”cheap”
consumer SSD with 128GB is right at $500, the RamSan-440 will cost a pretty
penny.

"Nowadays you can buy a CPU cheaper than the CPU fan." -- Unnamed AMD executive